Newly elected RPV chairman Jeff Frederick may be a right-wing extremist, but he's no dummy. Check out his plan for the first 100 days of his chairmanship - "a pro-active and aggressive plan to start winning again." As far as I can tell, it's very smart. I particularly like the following items:
*Building the grassroots
*Hiring additional RPV field staff
*"RPV field staff will fan out across Virginia to meet with representatives of every local GOP unit, as well as the Young Republican, College Republican, Teenage Republican, and Republican Women Clubs."
*"RPV will develop a best-practices document to
share ideas that lead to successes/strengths in units and clubs, and to develop RPV programs to address common weaknesses."
*"...include tested and proven methods for reaching out to minority communities and youth."
*"...lay the ground work to establish
a statewide deployable army of volunteers..."
*"Better stewardship" of the RPV's money: "RPV has done a very poor job of giving folks a return on
their money and we must immediately change that in both practice and perception."
*"...grow our house file (fundraising list) with innovative incentive programs for donors."
*"...make sure money is getting to the incumbents who need help, and the challengers who put forth the effort to have a chance to win."
*"Maximize and leverage technology" -- goal is "closing the technology gap with the Democrats, and even surpassing our opponents where we can with information tools."
*"...ensure that local unit and Republican activists all around the Commonwealth are armed with the information they need to combat the liberal media bias."
*"...provide a one-click front-and-center process for people to find out what is going on in their areas, and how to get involved with their local committee and/or campaigns."
*"...rebuild from the bottom-up our Party's data system."
*Youth initiative
*Move quickly and aggressively to get ready for 2009 ("We haven't a moment to spare, and
must begin our 2009 efforts immediately.")
*"...create a secure, proprietary "Majority Blog" accessible only by Republican legislators to keep them apprised of RPV's 2009 statewide recruitment and opposition research efforts.
As I said, I really like this list. Of course, the proof is in the pudding, but still...for everyone who felt that Jeff Frederick's selection as RPV chairman meant the party was "melting down" or whatever, I wonder what they're thinking now.
It's amazing to me that they now have to do catch up on grass roots organizing and they believe we are ahead of them in the use of technology, like blogs.
But we had best be careful. As John Edwards once observed, "Objects in your rear view mirror are closer than they appear."
On the other hand, beyond the techniques of campaigning, important as those are, they have to rebuild their brand and convince people that the military and economic failures of the past eight years aren't attributable to their own policies. Likewise, they have to explain how they have blocked all solutions to Virginia's transportation problems.
They need more than a winning message that can fit into a 90 second sound byte or on a brochure.